Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life"An audacious and concrete proposal…Half-Earth completes the 86-year-old Wilson’s valedictory trilogy on the human animal and our place on the planet." —Jedediah Purdy, New Republic In his most urgent book to date, Pulitzer Prize–winning author and world-renowned biologist Edward O. Wilson states that in order to stave off the mass extinction of species, including our own, we must move swiftly to preserve the biodiversity of our planet. In this "visionary blueprint for saving the planet" (Stephen Greenblatt), Half-Earth argues that the situation facing us is too large to be solved piecemeal and proposes a solution commensurate with the magnitude of the problem: dedicate fully half the surface of the Earth to nature. Identifying actual regions of the planet that can still be reclaimed—such as the California redwood forest, the Amazon River basin, and grasslands of the Serengeti, among others—Wilson puts aside the prevailing pessimism of our times and "speaks with a humane eloquence which calls to us all" (Oliver Sacks). |
Contents
HUMANITY NEEDS A BIOSPHERE | |
HOW MUCH BIODIVERSITY SURVIVES TODAY? | |
AN ELEGY FOR THE RHINOS | |
APOCALYPSES | |
ARE WE AS GODS? | |
WHY EXTINCTION IS ACCELERATING | |
THE WHOLLY DIFFERENT AQUEOUS WORLD | |
THE INVISIBLE EMPIRE | |
THE BEST PLACES IN THE BIOSPHERE | |
HISTORY REDEFINED | |
The Solution | |
THE AWAKENING | |
RESTORATION | |
HOW TO SAVE THE BIOSPHERE | |
LAND SEA AND | |
THE MOST DANGEROUS WORLDVIEW | |
The Real Living World | |
CONSERVATION SCIENCE | |
THE LORD GOD SPECIES | |
THE UNKNOWN WEBS OF LIFE | |
THREADING THE BOTTLENECK | |
WHAT MUST BE DONE | |
Sources and Further Reading | |
Glossary | |
Appendix | |